


On the brink of death

by LadyLigeia07



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLigeia07/pseuds/LadyLigeia07
Summary: Psychological experience between life and death.
Relationships: Asami Ryuichi/Liu Fei Long
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	On the brink of death

**Author's Note:**

> No mention of Akihito or Yan Tsui, minor changes regarding the main story. Some references to Finder no Souen. Slightly out of character.  
> Dedicated to my dear friend Em on discord. :)

On the brink of death

Unexpectedly, he felt like falling into the deep sea from a great height. He had been shot on the back and the sharp pain that followed made him tighten his mouth and close his eyes. _So death is like this_ , he thought _, like falling into an abyss of gray waters._ His heart ached while resigning himself to his fate. With his eyes closed, his mind wandered frenziedly around some memories, his heart beating faster than ever.

His reminiscences brought him into an elegant, large house in the countryside. There was a well-tended garden there, full of blooming flowers in spring. During the summer, it was watered and mowed often to keep its luxurious color, and beautiful and tall sunflowers kept growing each year. He remembered there was a woman there, a pretty woman wearing a cream cotton blouse decorated with red, embroidered flowers, and white linen pants. She was cutting some sunflowers with a hand pruner. She was alone there. He didn’t understand why but that image made his heart ached. She was pale and her lips were twisted in a sad gesture. He thought he loved her but his memories of that woman were polluted with melancholy and bitterness. She remained immobile in his mind, her dark hair put up with a hairclip before disappearing in the twilight, like the vision of a dream before the awakening. What was the meaning of all of this? Did he know her?

Suddenly, he remembered someone else: a handsome man, elegantly dressed, short blond hair, disapproving eyes. That man was smoking while telling him something with a displeased look. Both were in a big and black new car. There was a driver in his uniform on the front seat, ready to follow orders, so discreet and silent. He felt his small hands were cold while a big sense of loneliness invaded him right before hot tears flooded his eyes. He was still a kid in that vision. At this moment, he would have wanted to shut off his mind, remove his memories and visions from his consciousness but he wasn’t able to do it.

He was an adult now. He was in an East-Asian country in front of a man in a trench coat and a gray hat. That man had a mission for him, something interesting that would bring him not only money but also recognition and fame if successful. He wanted to achieve this goal and move on, as it always had been. Among other things, he was asked to use the feelings of a young gangster, a lonely one with a troublesome family, to achieve the best results. Nothing out of the ordinary, he was good in this, considering how confident he was in his seductive skills.

Nevertheless, it ended really bad, for both of them. The guy was a broken person, just like himself even if he would probably never admit this glaring truth. He had never gotten love from his family and never had expected it. However, he was capable of deep feelings but never wanted those to get involved while having a job on hand. At a certain point, everything went to hell and he ended facing the consequences of his mistake. He killed the important politician who had asked to carry out that mission for him. He didn’t accomplish his goal. In the emptiness of his current doomed destiny, he could see the resulting dark side of his reckless actions. He was facing death.

The young guy, whom he ended caring about, was left alone. However, he managed to send someone to keep an eye on him while he was sent to prison for a crime he wasn’t responsible for. For years, he wouldn’t be able to forget the eyes of that guy when he had told him: “You wouldn’t do something to harm me, would you?” sensing a lump in his throat. He experienced bitter guilt and regret, feelings he had never wanted to experience regarding anyone. In his mind, these feelings exposed other deeper emotions lying under the surface, like strong affection or even love. That guy’s sad eyes came hunting him many times in his sleep, invading his dreams with their helpless expression. His eyes were particularly beautiful, so unique that he couldn’t forget them. The very moment he saw them, he knew he just wanted to know more about them and their owner. A young man of many personality facets. All of them fascinating.

The abyss seemed infinite and he finally realized it was a real one. There were shadows while dust and broken pieces of concrete began falling together with his wounded body. It was the end, he thought, the end of his life in the vastness of an indifferent world. However, it seemed someone above didn’t want this to happen. Unexpectedly, he heard a voice, someone calling his name. He could recognize that voice but couldn’t remember its owner, even if it touched something deep inside him. Soon after, others, agitated and desperate voices, followed it. His consciousness was about to abandon him completely, his mind would retreat to the most hidden part of his soul. Broken pieces of scenes proceeded in slow motion. He ended up barely perceiving a white, bright light on his face, his body trembling and the repulsive smell of chemical disinfectants. Finally, his mind went completely dark, he fell into the obscurity of his lost cause. He was dying. He sensed it.

He found himself in a place he couldn’t recognize. He had never seen that place before. He could see a vast ocean in front of him as he sat down on the soft silver sand of the seashore. There was someone else there, approaching him. It was that guy. He sat down next to him.

“Do you know what you are doing here?” he asked. “Probably you don’t still understand so I must tell you. I’m a projection of your mind. Now you are in a big hospital where surgeons and medical specialists are doing everything in their hands to save your life. My real self took care of all that matters in the world above. I just wanted you to have the best treatments possible. You were dying and I just wanted to save you. You are so important to me, more than you can imagine. Do you remember what happened at the time we met each other?”

Asami was on the brink of remembering something but that thing was still far from his reach. He was just at the beginning of the process of realization. He raised his eyes and noticed that the sky above was obscured by gray, melancholic clouds that seemed to go down to the sea and cover it with a gray mantle. He looked at his hands, they were covered in blood. He knew this wasn’t real but merely a symbol. A powerful one.

“You betrayed me,” the guy added, “I trusted you and you got me shot by the man who paid you to set me up. For years, I was unable to forgive you. Now, I confess that I loved you but I hated myself for such a feeling. For a long time, I thought I would never forgive you but the truth is that I couldn’t forgive myself. Even if sometimes I would have liked to get rid of you, the truth is that I wouldn’t ever be able to do that. Time passed by and I came to terms with my feelings and I don’t feel bad regarding them anymore. As you can see, I came to help when I knew you needed me.”

Old memories came roaring to Asami’s mind, like thunders during an intense storm. He was holding that guy, whose name was Fei, in his arms under the pouring rain after he had fallen unconscious. He never wanted to hurt him yet he had betrayed him. When he tried to reverse what he had done, it was too late.

“I just wanted to protect you from your biological father. He gave me that important mission because he thought it would have been somehow easy for me to do it. He wanted to use you in the underworld as a tool. I swear I didn’t expect he would try to kill you. I realized what his real intentions were too late. I shot him after he did the same to you. You were unconscious so you didn’t see it.”

Fei looked at him with an enigmatic expression. Eventually, he smiled at Asami in his characteristic ambiguous way. “You are being honest now,” he said, “Even if I ended up in jail for the death of that man, I never really came to hate you. Now, I admit that I accepted the sentence and didn’t resort to appeal because I was put in a place where I could avoid the upcoming war for leadership inside my organization. I wanted this because I felt broken after my adoptive father had passed away. He meant everything to me and I was fed with the organization’s disputes and the constant plotting of some members inside.”

Asami remembered everything. He had left Fei alone to face justice. He preferred fleeing away because staying there could have harmed his reputation as a mediator in the underworld. After learning that Fei was put in prison, he had sent one of his most trusted underlings to protect him inside and to befriend him. It worked, that person helped him enough and after getting out from jail, Fei managed to get his organization back, without never getting to know who had been protecting him from the shadows. He had been given a short sentence for refusing to give information about one of the guns found in the crime scene and not for the death of the man himself. Asami had helped him out of guilt and a sense of responsibility. Now he felt the moment to open his heart completely, had arrived.

“I was a coward,” he said, with a sincerity that shocked Fei at the beginning.

“I was a coward for running away. In all these years, an inner voice had been always telling me I was wrong in doing something like this. Now things changed and I want to be completely honest with you. I did something terrible to you and I have no excuses but please don’t misjudge me. I never expected you would suffer this much for my misbehavior and lack of prudence. Never believe I never cared for you. I always respected you and admired you; you are a person with many qualities, probably better than I would ever be. I cannot find the right words to tell how much you meant to me.” Finally, he added, “Thanks for taking care of me when I truly needed it.”

The gray fog seemed to disappear from the landscape, the ocean became blue again… just like the sky above. Asami closed his eyes. He heard Fei’s voice in the distance, almost imperceptible, like if he was speaking to Asami from a faraway land.

“Remember your life is mine to take. Don’t forget.”

After a moment of bewilderment, Asami understood Fe’s words hold a form of encouragement, there was no real menace in them. His tone of voice conveyed affection even if he had tried to disguise his real emotions with a coat of harsh words.

Then Asami felt something unlocking his dormant senses, as if the echo of Fei’s last words resonated in his mind with the precision of a cutting surgical tool. However, it had nothing to do with any tool and it was more like the sensation of resurfacing from the waters and coming up to the light. He realized it was upcoming awareness.

He had just woken up.

A tear fell down his cheek. He remembered Fei and all that he had meant to him. It wasn’t a lie, Fei had always been important to him.

 _I truly loved you_ , he thought, _I truly did_.


End file.
